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Sam and Friends BookPart Two: Life in Transition (August 2004 - March 2005)
In August of 2004, I managed to feed my passion for puppetry further, when I first built Steve D'Monster in a matter of days - the result? He looks AWFUL! VERY cookie-cutter, and unprofessional, but what my real problem was that I was actually trying to beat a deadline! Since June, I had been interning at ETPtv, Knoxville's PBS affiliate, doing mostly gofer work and things like that, though sometimes they'd let me run a camera or something. Anyway, it was time to get ready for the August 2004 Friends of Sesame Street pledge drive, only this time, the station's resident puppeteer was unable to make it to the taping, as a result, they would either have to find a new puppeteer, or just do without puppets for this particular drive; feeling this was probably my chance to do some actual puppeteering work, I volunteered, and had less than a week to prepare myself, so I had to hurry up and build Steve and have him ready for the next week, but before that week, I brought Steve in to give everybody a demo of my work, and everyone was really impressed, so impressed were they, in fact, that they eventually gave me the nickname of "The Puppet Master"! So anyway, Steve became a big hit that week, and did I feel good? Well, yes, I did!Now, just in case anyone is interested, here's a clip from that particular week of the pledge drive.
It was around December 2004 when I managed to crawl out of my depression... well, it had been tapering off about a month earlier, but it was completely gone by December! During those last months of 2004, however, I was rarely on Muppet Central... frankly? I was rarely on the internet anymore anyway! The reason for this was due to the fact that our family desktop computer was screwed up all to Elmo, I kid you not! Because of this, we had no computer at home, so that meant the only change I'd get to get on a computer was if we went to the library; now that wasn't too big a deal, but we couldn't go everyday because it was monotonous, that is until the library was closer to us, then we were almost going on a daily basis, the only thing was mostly when we went, it was so I could research for homework and crap like that, but half the time, I COULD goof off to do a few things, like check my e-mail, and yes, get on MC.
All that DID suddenly change though, when in either January or February of 2005, I kind of forget now, but it was around that time, I got a brand new, used, porn-infested, offbrand laptop from the pawnshop (whoever owned it before had a porno fetish apparently), so after it was cleaned out and rebuilt, I was able to have my own personal computer, and that meant I could get online on a regular basis again... well, not quite still since at the time, all I could do for internet was use dial-up, so either my mom was on the phone, or I was on the internet. But either way, this is what led up to me posting on MC a little more regularly... lol, one of my fondest memories of around this time was when I saw at one point, the newest member was a chap who went by the name of Ziffel, because I thought "Ooh, I bet this guy's a fan of Green Acres"! But anyway. Oh yeah, and on February 28, 2005, I discovered and fell in love with Kathy Greenwood! ;P March 2005 came along, and so did another ETPtv Pledge Drive, and I had the thrill of my lifetime when I actually got called back to play Steve again, this time for TWO weeks, and opposite of the resident puppet, Karla, who became Steve's best friend, lol.For a look from this two-week drive, here's Steve going solo for a day (puppety solo that is, Karla couldn't make it).
While Steve's popularity kept growing, I was busy trying to make myself more at home at MC as well; as a matter of fact, it was around this time that led to the biggest transition of my MC life, which I will delve into in more detail in part three of this retrospective.
::wipes away tear::
By the tailend of March in 2005, I launched my 
By the summer of 2005, I couldn't have been happier at MC; I had friends, I had a good time talking about just about anything. And this is when I REALLY started to expand my posting range on MC. In the old days, I posted STRICTLY in the Sesame Street section, but then I slowly would start posting in the General Discussion board, and eventually, the Friends and Family board, and I think that further helped me earn new friends around here since I was actually starting to get around; in fact, that summer, I saw my first birthday thread, as started by HPDJ. It was all well and good, but after a while, I slowly started to realize something... I had the feel that I was driving people away from certain threads... like for example, if there was a hot topic with a lot of posting going on, once I would post in thread, it was like the topic just simply died or something; or if I started a thread, nobody seemed to interested in it. I was happy to saee, however, that I wasn't alone... my good buddy Vic Romano also shared his feelings about being regarded as a "Thread Killah" (as he coined it), as did That Announcer, and eventually MrsPepper; this lead to MrsPepper's awesome new thread: 
2005 slowly began to wind down, by August, I was a part of what became the last pledge drive of ETPtv, and what seemed like the last television audiences would see of Steve D'Monster. By the fall of that year, Season One of T*K*O had come to an end, and with such success, MrsPepper and I were already making talks of renewing for another season (I also remember that she felt afterwards, we should've gone down the route of continuing our franchise with a series of "specials" like the muppets do so we wouldn't be pushing a good thing too far, but wouldn't also be depriving our fans either), and by November of 2005, Season Two of T*K*O premiered with new characters including ThePrawnCracker who replaced That Announcer, TogetherAgain who replaced recurring character KermieBaby47, Vibs (who was a recurring character in Season One), and Beauregard (also a recurring character in Season One), a few more friends came (AM, William, Beth, Kendra), some friends left (namely That Announcer, HPDJ, Kendra sometimes, FishNWolfe, Beebers sometimes), but it was all well and good. Soon, 2005 gave way to 2006, and suddenly, even more new wonderful friends came into the picture (Marty, Skye to name a couple), and in all honesty, it was then and there that I realized that Muppet Central wasn't just an internet forum, or a virtual community, but it really was a second family to me! What more could I ask for? Life was good! Little did I know that life was about to take a wrong turn just around the corner...
